John W. Stephens

John W. "Chicken" Stephens (13 October 1834-21 May 1870) was a Republican "Scalawag" state senator in North Carolina who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1870.

Biography
John W. Stephens was born in Summerfield, Guilford County, North Carolina in 1834, and his family later moved to Leaksville, Rockingham County. He became a tobacco trader, and, during the American Civil War, he commandeered horses for the Confederate States Army, also mustering draftees for the army. After the war, he gained the nickname "Chicken" after shooting several chickens belonging to the postmaster after mistaking them for his own, and he spent a night in jail. Due to his unpopularity in Wentworth, he moved to Yanceyville, Caswell County in 1866, where he served as an agent for the Freedmen's Bureau. He became a member of the Republican Party and supported the enfranchisement of African-Americans, making him an enemy of the conservative white Democrats of the state. He was elected to the State Senate in 1868, and he was ostracized from the white community, which expelled him from his church and accused him of murdering his own mother. On 21 May 1870, he visited a prominent Yanceyville Democrat at the Caswell County Courthouse and attempted to convince him to run for Sheriff as a Republican, but the man lured Stephens into the basement, where the Ku Klux Klan garroted him to death.